Archiving for the Common Good: Bringing Communities Together Through History - Webinar

Wednesday, March 11 from 12:00–1:00 PM

The C. Benton Kline, Jr. Special Collections and Archives at Columbia Theological Seminary would like to thank the congregations and mid-councils who participated in our recent record digitization collaboration with Ancestry.com. We sent update letters to those involved late last year, and we would now like to give you an update on the project.

As it stands, some 800,000+ pages of records have been scanned and quality-checked by Ancestry.com personnel, who will also be indexing the names found across all minutes and registers. We hope to celebrate the completion of the project during Columbia Theological Seminary’s upcoming bicentennial celebrations in 2028.

Upon completion of the project, the scanned records of all participating congregations will be available online for congregants to view at any time via Ancestry.com.  These records will also be of great benefit to historians and genealogical researchers, who can trace family histories using the church memberships, baptisms, marriages, and deaths recorded within the session minutes and registers. 

To further explain the value of these records to the PC(USA) and broader communities, the Archives would like to invite you to a webinar on Wednesday, March 11, from 12:00–1:00 p.m. EDT.  In partnership with the Rev. Dr. Julia Robinson Moore and Adreonna Bennett of UNC Charlotte’s J. Murrey Atkins Special Collections, “Archiving for the Common Good: Bringing Communities Together Through History” will discuss the uses of archival resources for genealogy and reconciliation between communities.  This presentation will be free and open to the public, so if you know anyone who might be interested, please pass the invitation along.

Anyone interested can register here or by using the QR code on the attached flyer. The Zoom link will be sent out shortly before the webinar begins. We hope to see you there!